Post a controversial opinion

Chelsea Clinton would probably be a good elected official

i want to run to someone, but there's no one around

that, darraghmac, is well said

i watched the first 10 minutes of Ferris Bueller a couple times and it's not even funny.
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, May 2, 2017 1:41 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same with blues brothers, spaceballs, airplane!, etc

Support of open borders by developed world progressives ultimately harms their constituents, and the inevitable backlash threatens the open society. When the climate refugee crisis arrives in earnest later this century, the fight for the political center will be between varieties of isolationism and authoritarianism.

semi, right, yer crazy

xp

seems otm to me xp

think about it twice as long
tell me what's going wrong

"Theme from S-Express" was the last memorable British dance track.

Monie Love was the last great British MC.

I'd forgotten she was British. Monie In The Middle is classic! <<non-controvertial

Support of open borders by developed world progressives ultimately harms their constituents, and the inevitable backlash threatens the open society. When the climate refugee crisis arrives in earnest later this century, the fight for the political center will be between varieties of isolationism and authoritarianism.

― behavioral sink (Sanpaku), Tuesday, May 2, 2017 12:58 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whereas a zero-tolerance policy would result in what?

Monie Love was the last great British MC.

agreed

Tattoos are gross and off-putting. Also, nobody who has one on their neck should be allowed to decide if I can get on an airplane.

xp:

Personally, I don't think country bans would work either, at least for nations that pride themselves on being melting pots or have an imperial legacy. Really, I think the ideal would objective measures of assimilation (eg, employment and judicial status, host language literacy, etc, including for the 2nd generation), and quotas preventing much further legal immigration from given nations when assimilation isn't happening.

We can't assume that because the developed could accommodate 2 million Syrians that it can find a place for the hundreds of millions of future climate refugees. If "climate justice" prevailed, they would, but this isn't a just world. And when unassimilated minorities rise to the double-digit percentages, immigration becomes the major political question, and right-wing authoritarians offer answers the electorate wants to hear. Liberal democracy is threatened.

Jeremy Grantham gave a fairly articulate voice to my concerns:

The truth about immigration to the EU, in my view, is bitter. As covered in earlier quarterlies, I believe Africa and parts of the Near East are beginning to fail as civilized states. They are failing under the pressure of populations that have multiplied by 5 to 10 times since I was born; climate for growing food that is deteriorating at an accelerating rate; degraded soils; insufficient unpolluted water; bad governance; and lack of infrastructure. Country after country is tilting into rolling failure. This is producing in these failing states increasing numbers of desperate people, mainly young men, willing to risk money and their lives to attempt an entry into the EU.

For the best example of the non-compute intractability of this problem, consider Nigeria. It had 21 million people when I was born and now has 187 million. In a recent poll, 40% of Nigerians (75 million) said they would like to emigrate, mostly to the U.K. (population 64 million). Difficult. But the official UN estimate for Nigeria’s population in 2100 is over 800 million! (They still have a fertility rate of six children per woman.) Without discussing the likelihood of ever reaching 800 million, I suspect you will understand the problem at hand. Impossible.

I wrote two years ago that this immigration pressure would stress Europe and that the first victim would be Western Europe’s liberal traditions. Well, this is happening in real time as they say, far faster than I expected. It will only get worse as hundreds of thousands of refugees become millions.

Am I willing to say no to refugees to prevent a future of Trumps and LePens? Yes.

Sanpaku do u have a link for that? Would be interested in reading more.

That was the pertinent section, but here is the full commentary.

Am I willing to say no to refugees to prevent a future of Trumps and LePens? Yes.

Well, the scariest things about these leaders for me are their policies and attitudes about immigrants. If you are on board with saying no to refugees and implementing country-based quotas for immigration in the first place, what is it exactly that you are hoping to avoid in the future?

I think there are far worse outcomes than living in a nation with restrictive immigration. If one takes climate change and resource limitation projections seriously, they has implications for political life. I believe immigration to most developed nations will become seriously restricted this century, especially once their own food security becomes threatened. Its not a matter of if, but when. And of course whether those restrictions occur under social governance that values the welfare of the least among citizens, or under corrupt authoritarian regimes with "winner takes all" values. The more aggrieved the average voter becomes with stagnating wages, diluted culture, or threats posed by unassimilated migrants, the more likely they'll cast their vote for the later.

The Left's rhetoric of a common humanity can't win this issue in the long run. Unlike other wedge issues the Right leverages (abortion & guns in the U.S.), the migrant concern will grow inexorably this century, especially in the EU, the destination of choice for the mid-east and subsaharan Africa. In the U.S., the Right will continue leverage this hot-button to eliminate our social safety nets, environmental protections, and human investment. Better for the Left to preempt this by pushing towards policies that will work, even later this century.

has have implications

Sanpaku, where do you live? Because in Denmark, the biggest party on the left has moved almost completely in the direction of the populist right on the question of immigration. And it doesn't work. It's almost as if right wing populism is based on something much more darker than fears about stagnated wages. And the populists are always willing to go farther.

if grantham's reading is accurate then surely there will be voices advocating some sort of neo-colonialism/more direct control to sort out all these failed states. if he's right about threats of climate & overpopulation then what does he suggest ppl in nigeria do beyond mitigation

always surprised when overpopulation guys fail to take one for the team

What countries need to take more immigrants? Where is more likely to take immigrants?

Japan is really resistant to it but maybe they'll need immigrants to help deal with their halfing population?

russia could do with some

wait, there are halflings in Japan?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/a3/d1/2b/a3d12b67d7fd976f9a7d7535f07dcdde.jpg

Nobody gets James Brown except me.

Am I willing to say no to refugees to prevent a future of Trumps and LePens? Yes.

This is best on another thread but with respect fuck this binary reasoning forever.

I also think S Express had the best first three singles or any band ever.

What countries need to take more immigrants/

http://www.scotlandinfo.eu/images/feature/welcome-carter-bar.jpg

I think there are far worse outcomes than living in a nation with restrictive immigration. If one takes climate change and resource limitation projections seriously, they has implications for political life. I believe immigration to most developed nations will become seriously restricted this century, especially once their own food security becomes threatened. Its not a matter of if, but when. And of course whether those restrictions occur under social governance that values the welfare of the least among citizens, or under corrupt authoritarian regimes with "winner takes all" values. The more aggrieved the average voter becomes with stagnating wages, diluted culture, or threats posed by unassimilated migrants, the more likely they'll cast their vote for the later.

The Left's rhetoric of a common humanity can't win this issue in the long run. Unlike other wedge issues the Right leverages (abortion & guns in the U.S.), the migrant concern will grow inexorably this century, especially in the EU, the destination of choice for the mid-east and subsaharan Africa. In the U.S., the Right will continue leverage this hot-button to eliminate our social safety nets, environmental protections, and human investment. Better for the Left to preempt this by pushing towards policies that will work, even later this century.

― behavioral sink (Sanpaku), Tuesday, May 2, 2017 9:53 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's some shitass right-wing dictum, attributed to milton friedman but probably apocryphal, that says that you can't have a welfare state and mass immigration. id say conversely it's impossible to have a left-wing party based on solidarity that pushes for zero immigration. that party will inexorably attract a shit electorate, and become a garbage right-wing party in all other respects, not least because it is hard to control illegal immigration within a liberal framework (visa overstays are a huge source of illegal immigration, do we make foreigners carry ID cards and have police stop them?)

in any case we already have - in the u.s. and the uk, two countries which in very real senses are not substantively rocked by the issue of immigration outside of many of their inhabitants minds - going wild for anti-immigration and voting in governments that are destroying the supports the poorest autochthonous denizens rely on. if trump builds his wall and a neo-bernie posits single payer and free university but you get to keep the wall is he going to win?

Discussion of what Friedman said: http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-milton-friedman-really-said.html

It seems that he more or less did say that you can't have open borders and a welfare state, although it was because he liked open borders and disliked welfare.

russia could do with some

Foreigners in the Russian workforce, as a percentage, are much higher than the UK (15% vs 10%) and they're actively pushing for more migrants. There was an interesting Bloomberg article about it recently.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-14/russia-s-alternative-universe-immigrants-welcome

tbqh, i think the long-term argument is not going to be about whether you do or do not have migration - it's an economic and social necessity - but the rights of migrants, which is where a lot of the Friedmanite thought comes in. I would expect a shift away from rhetoric on tightly-sealed borders towards the kind of position you have in the Gulf where it's relatively easy to obtain a right to work but citizenship and benefits are impossible and you can be kicked out despite having lived there for generations.

that seems worse than closed borders

I think that was pretty much the idea to begin with. Guest workers would come here, work as long as they were needed, then of course return home to their own countries. But that didn't happen.

To me, it's not that open borders are incompatible with welfare states. If every country was a welfare state, there would be no problem. Open borders are unworkable once you reach a certain level of global inequality, and we are probably way past that level. Problem is, though, that closed borders only raises the level where it's workable a bit, and then what? The only solution is to do something about global inequality, but... yeah...

lol, Strasserism isn't going to work. The ideal of common humanity sure feels like a tough sell right now, but it's the only game in town for the left. Give up on that and there's only really fatalistic acceptance of a future of fascism, caste system and mass death.

(I'm veering towards fatalistic acceptance lol wite d00d)

How is this for controversial: I'm still an optimist! The disaster was the crash in 2008, and we're still figuring out a way forward. Trumpism is failing, Bannonism is failing, the demographics are still pointing to a less white supremacist US, the story of France is centrism winning over conservatism + populist leftism winning over centrist leftism, and the rise of China still points to a less eurocentric world. Yeah, Britain is completely and utterly fucked, and for some reason the left keeps getting bogged down in internecine squabbles, but overall trends are fairly good. Until the oceans swallow us all, of course.

things are definitely getting worse in the world ask anyone from 1547

our generation faces the hardest life and worst threats to existence ever

the story of France is centrism winning over conservatism

bro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6L8rHyzQj0

x-post: They went from Chirac + Jospin in 2002 to Macron + Melenchon in 2017. Overall, the electorate moved a fair bit to the left. FN has only gained five percentage points in the last three elections, despite a cleaning up of the image, that included kicking her father out, and she seems to have stumbled badly in the campaign - though I'm saying this with an outsiders perception. There are all indications that a populist leftist candidate could overtake her as the preferred anti-centrist option, though again: Internecine squabbles...

our generation faces the hardest life and worst threats to existence ever

http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-sometimes-i-even-cut-myself-to-see-how-much-it-bleeds-it-s-like-adrenaline-the-pain-eminem-57-2-0274.jpg

Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive

you think the Great Leap Forward was hard, we have people making fun of CNN on a daily basis

Tattoos are gross and off-putting.

I don't think they're gross but I don't see their point.

for in case you're waiting a long time for a bus and you get bored and wanna look at something

Contro-op: It could just be that a group in power is the most susceptible to corruption, but it's also possible that there's something deeply, fundamentally wrong with white people.